


learn to build a heart made of armor

by narquelie



Category: Iron Fist (TV), Marvel, The Defenders - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Post-Series, Sibling Incest, season one spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-07 18:28:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10366740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narquelie/pseuds/narquelie
Summary: “I missed you,” he says instead, the familiar hollowness and longing inside him more unbearable than any migraine has ever been. “Where have you been?”Joy’s lips curl in a mockery of a smile and it makes her mouth start to tremble. “You’ve been writing to me almost every day.”“You never replied.”“Yet you kept writing. Can’t you take a hint?”





	

**Author's Note:**

> i finished the show 3 hours ago and this happened

take it from the girl you claim to love  
you're gonna get some bad karma  


 

 

-

 

 

The tip of the dagger presses into his chest. Hard enough for him to feel it there, light enough not to draw blood. Joy’s hand doesn’t shake.

His eyes rake over her form, hungry for every detail he’s missed in the past three years. She looks different; eyes harder, pink-painted lips pressed into a tight line, shoulders back and neck straight, holding herself like a soldier. But she smells the same, the sweet scent that attacks his senses, the warmth of her breath when she stands so close to him. His hands itch, but he keeps them pressed to his sides, the only connection between them the tip of her blade.

“Davos is going to kill Danny. Right now. He deserves to die for ruining our lives – don’t even try to stop this.” The words rush out of her mouth, and as far as explanations go this one makes little sense to Ward, but if he’s learnt anything in his life it’s not to question the unbelievable. He keeps still, even as she presses the dagger harder into his chest -- a warning that means nothing to him; he’s used to pain.

“I missed you,” he says instead, the familiar hollowness and longing inside him more unbearable than any migraine has ever been. “Where have you been?”

 Joy’s lips curl in a mockery of a smile and it makes her mouth start to tremble. “You’ve been writing to me almost every day.”

“You never replied.”

“Yet you kept writing. Can’t you take a hint?”

He lets out a humorless chuckle. His throat is dry, tongue like sandpaper in his mouth. “I’m your brother. It takes more than a hint for me to give up.”

_Where are you, I miss you, I’m sorry, Come back._ The words he wrote scared him sometimes, born in the quiet solitude of his office, in the pale illumination of his computer screen. The nights spent with his hands shaking, sweat trailing down his back, yearning, _aching_ for something to dull out his feelings. Losing her was unimaginable, the only reason why he survived the years after Dad’s death ripped from his life, leaving him a shell of a person. But somehow, miraculously, he kept going.

He bites his tongue, so many words threatening to spill out and damn him, and he can’t, _he can’t_. “I’m so sorry, Joy.”

Her eyes glisten, tears welling up and breaking the fierce mask she’s put on, and he despises himself for making her cry. “I wanted to hate you,” she says quietly, “every night when I was lying in bed, thinking about what both of you have done to me, I wanted to hate you so much.” Her hand starts to shake and he can feel the sting of the dagger as it grazes his skin. “And I thought I did. Until I came here.”

“You know that everything I did was to protect you,” he says hoarsely.

“Don’t you dare,” Joy hisses, “you’ve been lying to me my entire life. Nothing you ever said to me was true.”

Joy, his Joy, aiming a dagger straight into his heart with her words.

“I love you. This has never been a lie.”

“How is this love, Ward?” Tears roll down her cheeks and his own eyes sting like hell. He curls his hands into fists, bites his nails into his palms to stop himself from doing something he might regret. “How is lying, manipulating, scheming – how is any of this love? You hurt me more than Dad did, more than the Hand, more than Danny – I trusted you, unconditionally,” her voice breaks, and she can’t catch her breath (neither can he), “and you betrayed me.”

He knows all of it is true. What he broke is unfixable. Unforgivable.

“Okay,” he says after a pause. He looks down at the dagger she still presses into his chest, the drops of blood starting to pool on his shirt. “Go on, do it. I deserve it.”

Joy takes a shallow breath, a storm raging in her eyes. “Shut up,” she hisses through clenched teeth. “Shut _up_. You don’t get to do this.”

“I mean it. I’m not going to stop you. Hell knows I deserve it, so go on and fucking do it.”

He can feel her anger, so powerful, pushing her over the edge.

The dagger clatters to the floor. “You fucking asshole.”

And then she’s on him, lips biting at his and hands tugging at his hair. His body comes back to life, taking over, and his arms go around her, so familiar and right. He lifts her onto his desk and her legs immediately wrap around his hips. There’s blood in his mouth and he’s so hard already her warmth beneath him is rapidly driving him towards insanity.

“He’s going to kill Danny,” she repeats, breaking the kiss enough for him to draw a shallow breath.

“I don’t care.” His hand slips under her blouse, touches the vicious bullet scar on her side that taints her body because of him, and he grits his teeth so hard his jaw aches. “I only care about you.”

She lets out a sound between a sob and a moan and reaches down to unclasp his belt.

When he moves inside her it’s like coming home, surrounded but her sweet smell, hungry lips and wet cunt. Her nails scratch down his back, as he fucks her savagely into his desk. He makes her come, hard, holds her shaking body in the safety of his arms.

They stay that way, tangled up in each other, Joy’s face pressed into his neck, her palms soothing the scratches she made on his back. He loves that they will scar.

Ward pushes back the damp hair from her face, looks into her eyes, so like his own. “Please, don’t leave me again,” he begs, pathetic and needy, as Dad would say. But Joy turns her head to the side so she can kiss his palm, and he can breathe for the first time in years.

“I won’t. I can’t,” she says, and there is resignation in her eyes. “But I haven’t forgiven you yet.” There will be time for regret and worry later, but right now all that matters is that she’s back, and that she’s back with him, and he knows he will spend the rest of his life making it all up to her. If she lets him.

(Which she will.)    

 


End file.
